How has Cold War history changed from 945-2000?
| Subject: | 🏺 History |
| Type: | Synthesis Essay |
| Pages: | 2 |
| Word count: | 613 |
| Topics: | Historiography, Cold War |
essay ASAP?
The cold war was a terrible experience that led to different views on United State and the Soviet Union. On cold war, weapons were not used as countries used different approaches so as to gain more power. For instance, America used policies which made it more powerful. The United State, as well as the Soviet Union was the main nations involved in the cold war. Besides, the relationship between the two nations was too tense. According to Therborn (2015), the Americans were suspicious about the Soviet communism and were also so concerned on the tyrannical of the leader of Russia who practiced a blood-thirsty ruling to his own country (Gaddis, 2011). The paper intends to discuss how the cold war history changed from the year 1945 to 2000. The historiography and scholarship of the cold war will be discussed.
Gutek (2000) argues that the increase in the post war tension among the American as well as the Soviet Union accelerated the cold war. Along the period between 1945 and 2000, the history of the cold war kept on changing and more academic discussion that helped in tracing its origin was organized. Many scholars developed several schools of thoughts on the cold war which can be described as three differing approaches to understand the cold war.
On the pro-soviet account, the Soviet Union blamed the West as the cause of the cold war. On the other hand, the anti-cold war which is a school of history considered the Soviet Union as the main strong force that led to the development of the world while the United State was regarded as the major progressive force that acted as an obstacle that hindered the advancement of humanity in the world. Therefore, the cold war was argued to be caused by the aggression from American toward the Soviet Union. On the orthodox account which was believed to be developed years several years after the war, Soviet Union was solely to blame for the cold war. This was because Soviet Union was engaged in massive activities in its bid to expand its ties with Eastern Europe.
On the Revisionism school of thought, Viola (2002) argues that United State, as well as the Soviet Union, are both the nations to be blamed for the blundering of the cold war. As the United States continued to increase in foreign market and business, the Soviet Union leaders were committed to the expansion of the communism. Some historian on this account argues that the use of the atomic weapon against Japan was the start of the cold war and a way of intimidating the Soviet Union. Thus, this was a way of showing that the U.S could have used the bombs against the Soviet Union but they didn’t.
After the revisionist interpretation, a critical reaction was observed hence led to the emergence of post-revisionist scholarships. This account was developed to show the balance between orthodox and revisionism by claiming that Soviet hostility, as well as the effort of United State to emerge being the most powerful nation in the postwar world, led to the cold war. The orthodox, revisionism as well as pot-revisionism explains how cold war changed and who was to be blamed for it origin.
In conclusion, neither the Soviet Union nor United State can be blamed to be fully responsible for the cold war. Besides, the differing explanation offered by the various schools of thoughts, more understanding is been developed. The paper has discussed on how the history of cold war has changed from 1945 to 2000. Different schools or thoughts have been discussed to at least explain who should be blamed for the start of the cold war.
- Gutek, Gerald Lee. American education 1945-2000: A history and commentary. Waveland Pr Inc, 2000.
- Gaddis, John Lewis. “The emerging post-revisionist synthesis on the origins of the Cold War.” Diplomatic History 7, no. 3 (2011): 171-190.
- Therborn, Göran. European modernity and beyond: the trajectory of European societies, 1945-2000. Sage, 2015.
- Viola, Lynne. “The Cold War in American Soviet historiography and the end of the Soviet Union.” The Russian Review 61, no. 1 (2002): 25-34.
Offered for reference purposes only.